Part 2
One of the missing people was the brown-haired C-class Sentinel who had asked for Mǐ Qiū’s contact information last time.
Even now, Mǐ Qiū felt this matter was too surreal.
But at this moment, she clearly wasn’t dreaming.
The sharp-chinned Sentinel who was close to the brown-haired Sentinel was expressionless.
Some Sentinels had gone out to look. Regarding the result, someone shook their head and said, “Our people have already searched. We only found one of Xiàn Hán’s shoes, Xiǎo Zhì’s ox horn necklace, and some body fragments next to them… completely unrecognizable.”
That could confirm they had encountered the D411 Aliens. Once in their hands, the possibility of leaving no remains was very high.
Squad Leader Qí sighed and said, “Don’t waste effort.”
As soon as these words came out, everyone fell silent.
They naturally knew what this meant. The sharp-chinned Sentinel said, “No! Are those monsters going to eat them, and we can’t save them?”
Squad Leader Qí didn’t want to either. His heart hurt more than anyone else’s, but he understood what he had to bear.
“We must ensure our own safety now. If they have encountered something, we absolutely cannot act rashly. We need to calm down and think about what the countermeasure is. What we need to do is, first, strengthen defense, and second, change the people delivering food. Naturally, the second batch of food deliverers hasn’t rotated to you yet, so make your own choice.”
“Perhaps we can decide by drawing lots.”
The sharp-chinned Sentinel said, “Why stop looking? Our support area has indeed been attacked by them, but it shouldn’t be a major incident. Those body fragments aren’t necessarily theirs, right?”
Squad Leader Qí: “This time is different. You know what losing contact means!”
“Even if there’s a possibility?”
“I tell you, there is no possibility! In this rainforest, they have no way out. If he still doesn’t believe it, didn’t we pick up part of the body fragments? We can verify it for him.”
After all, it was a friend who had an accident. Although they usually bickered, when something really happened, he felt terrible. He refused to believe it, even though he knew the one-in-ten-thousand chance of survival was gone.
However, they verified it in the end. Indeed, as Squad Leader Qí predicted, the results matched.
Mǐ Qiū remembered that he was just talking to her, seemingly lively, and now he was gone. It felt terrible.
The final decision wasn’t made by drawing lots. Squad Leader Qí meant to see who was willing.
Mǐ Qiū: “I can go!”
The sharp-chinned Sentinel naturally said he wanted to go too. Exactly two people, enough.
“You’re crazy!” Squad Leader Qí shouted at her. “Do you know how high the danger level is?”
Mǐ Qiū nodded. “Oh, I know, but someone has to deliver these meals to the frontline.”
“Guide Mǐ Qiū, this makes it difficult for me.”
“But Squad Leader Qí, didn’t you say I had a chance to go to the frontline?” Mǐ Qiū asked.
“I did say that. But now…” He frowned and gritted his teeth.
“I’ll have to go there sooner or later, just let me deliver it.”
Squad Leader Qí sat back in his seat. He asked, “Are you sure you really want to go?”
“It doesn’t matter, and my wound is healed.”
Squad Leader Qí: “Okay, come with me.”
So Mǐ Qiū went to a room alone with him. Squad Leader Qí slowly said to her, “I don’t know what tactics those monsters have adopted, but what I can understand is that they are now interfering with our support area. Because they discovered it, discovered that our support area is also so important, so they want to cut off our provisions. This way, the front will also lose the strength to fight them. But do you know what this means? Once you go out, everything is unknown.”
Mǐ Qiū still indicated that she understood.
“Officer Hè asked me to ensure your safety.”
“I will protect myself well. I already fought him last time.”
Since Mǐ Qiū had to go to the frontline sooner or later, it was better to go sooner.
“You fought him? You don’t even know which experimental level the opponent is, or who you are facing? You know too little about all this. Do you know how to hold a gun? Do you know how to aim a bullet at the enemy?”
Mǐ Qiū: “I’ll try. I’ve learned about these materials at this stage.”
In the past few days, Mǐ Qiū wasn’t just staying here slacking off, eating, and sleeping. She had searched for a lot of news about that mysterious monster on many websites.
Of course, Mǐ Qiū still didn’t know who the leader of these hormone-injected Sentinels was, but she still obtained some effective information: for example, the experimental level of the monsters, where their respective weaknesses were, and what kind of weapons were needed to fight them. Mǐ Qiū only discovered later that dealing with them required some methods.
One method she discovered was using fire and ice. Fire and ice could thoroughly destroy them. Using both approaches would be more effective. What Squad Leader Qí didn’t expect was that Mǐ Qiū had even come up with a battle plan.
Squad Leader Qí was still hesitating, not quite sure if she was the right candidate.
But seeing her determined look, it seemed he had to let her go now.
“This is what you said last time, Squad Leader, that every predicament is a test for a person. You have to learn to face it, welcome it, embrace it, instead of escaping.”
“Guide Mǐ Qiū, you apply it quite quickly.”
“I won’t stop you. But for this matter, you have to tell Officer Hè in advance.”
Tonight, the place where they were stationed would all move, advancing about a thousand meters forward.
Volunteering to help deliver food, but Mǐ Qiū actually had no confidence in her heart.
Doing this was just wanting to complete her task as soon as possible.
After searching many posts on the StarNet, Mǐ Qiū already had some ideas.
How could Mǐ Qiū not be afraid? That would be lying. Mǐ Qiū found the Sentinel who would go with her tomorrow, Xiàn Hán’s friend Huà Quán, the one with the sharp chin.
It was late at night. Mǐ Qiū found Huà Quán. “Can you help me catch a few Fire Elephant Beetles?”
“Fire Elephant Beetles? What do you plan to do with them?”
“They can be used as raw material for Molten Fire Guns. The gun model shouldn’t be that important, but mainly the bullets fired using them as fuel hitting the monster, that’s very important. As for ice, there must be some here.”
He was still a little puzzled by her idea and said to her, “Guide Mǐ Qiū, Molten Fire Guns do exist, but what is the basis for the Fire Elephant Beetle you mentioned?”
Mǐ Qiū learned about Fire Elephant Beetles from Hè Chí.
Actually, before searching, Mǐ Qiū really didn’t know Fire Elephant Beetles had such a use. She planned to try it herself.
What she was very good at was finding her own method from places where nothing could be found.
For example, although some messy information poured into her mind, Mǐ Qiū could always find a good idea in it. Afterward, she just followed the Fire Elephant Beetle production tutorial on the StarNet and started her experiment. Mǐ Qiū believed that everything had the possibility of being tried.
However, for her, the first step was the hardest. For all kinds of weird bugs, she didn’t dare touch them. Let alone touch, she didn’t even dare look at them.
So Mǐ Qiū was worried about a lot of things.
But fortunately, he was there. Catching bugs was a piece of cake for him.
Soon, an empty bottle was filled with at least dozens of Fire Elephant Beetles. He asked, “Do you need more?”
“Mhm, a bit more.”
Mǐ Qiū actually helped him look, but the task of catching Fire Elephant Beetles was all left to him.
In general environments, they were hard to survive, but in an environment like the rainforest, Fire Elephant Beetles seemed to be everywhere. Because in humid and hot places, they were often caught in rock crevices.
He asked, “Do you want them?”
Mǐ Qiū shook her head and said, “I don’t know how to catch them, mainly because I’m afraid of them.”
“It doesn’t matter, leave it all to me. I’ll catch a few more.”
But he sighed, “It’s a pity I can’t avenge my friend.”
Mǐ Qiū knew it was hard for him to accept this fact. He said, “Actually, in this place, if someone goes missing, the survival rate is probably only 0.001%. I didn’t give up hope, but the result told me everything.”
“And now there’s even worse news, do you want to hear it?” Mǐ Qiū leaned close to him.
The woman’s hair tips gently brushed across his face, tickling his heart, but he remained calm and said to her, “The monster that came this time should be Subject No. 2, otherwise it wouldn’t have killed two Sentinels without any movement. You know, if it’s a monster below experimental level 3, it’s not difficult for our Sentinels to deal with them.” He patted Mǐ Qiū’s shoulder, “However, Guide Mǐ Qiū, don’t worry, I will definitely protect you on the way.”
The food delivery mission started the next day, but Mǐ Qiū hadn’t fully prepared herself mentally.
They got into a vehicle. This vehicle drove automatically.
Huà Quán sat outside the car, saying he would watch from the outside, while Mǐ Qiū needed to sit inside. In the back of this long vehicle, there were many boxed lunches that had been chilled and kept fresh.
Mǐ Qiū had no confidence, wondering if this delivery would be smooth. She thought, if anything happened, she would have to fight desperately with that method, but she still hoped nothing would happen.
She couldn’t help but be nervous, not knowing what would happen on the road.
The wheels made creaking noises as they drove on the somewhat muddy ground.
The destination was more than 6000 meters away, but they had already traveled more than 3000 meters, with more than 2000 meters left. At this moment, there was still no movement outside.
“Only 400 meters, 300 meters left to the Field Zone…” Mǐ Qiū muttered to herself. Nothing had happened along the way, which reassured her.
Suddenly, Huà Quán’s voice sounded: “Guide Mǐ Qiū, pick up the gun quickly! There’s a D411 Alien ahead!”
Mǐ Qiū: “Is it a long-tongued monster?”
“No, a hundred times more terrifying than that.”
Mǐ Qiū tried hard to calm down so her hands wouldn’t shake so much when holding the gun.
Naturally, she hadn’t fired a gun. She only knew how to aim at the target when Zhù Shāngchén taught her sniping training back then. She hadn’t really pulled the trigger.
She opened the car door. Just ahead, not far away, was the Field Zone, only a few hundred meters away. She had to successfully transport the things there.
Huà Quán protected her directly. Mǐ Qiū held the Molten Fire Gun, and he held a gun filled with ice.
So, Mǐ Qiū fired the Molten Fire Gun first, and he followed closely, firing the ice gun.
This monster was wearing an A-class Sentinel’s clothes.
But the head had become a monster. His head actually looked like a palm-shaped pink thing, with five tentacles drooping softly.
Although Mǐ Qiū hit it, she dared not look at it directly, because looking at it reminded her of that lingering shadow. She kept firing, almost using up all the bullets.
When the Molten Fire Gun fired, the half-human, half-monster’s head and face were beaten flat, but the body could still move, walking towards them continuously, and using one of its deep, long tentacles to ruthlessly strangle the neck of Huà Quán who was protecting her.
Mǐ Qiū shot through his tentacle, but he still wouldn’t let go of Huà Quán. Mǐ Qiū’s bullets were all used up, so she could only use his ice gun.
Mǐ Qiū took Huà Quán’s gun and continued shooting. “Why is it so tough? Why can’t this thing be torn or pierced?” She doubted herself again and again.
Suddenly, the monster’s body shattered into pieces, turning into ashes and buried underground forever. Its two fish-like white eyes were also beaten into powder.
At this time, a figure of a man wearing military boots appeared in front of them…
Recommended Reads
